Merry Christmas, Truck

Christmas Day found my wife and I at my parents house. The stockings were placed with care near the tree, and there I found truck parts waiting for me. My mom and dad had ordered me a pair of cab corners. Upon returning home I tried fitting them up and they look pretty good. Especially compared to the gaping holes they're intended to cover.

But this was not to be then end of Christmas surprises. Today I got another box of goodies- this time from Mike, with some help from Will: A set of door mirrors, a set of new pedals, and the gas filler neck grommet! These items will be safely stored away until I'm ready to use them.



To begin the floor, I still need outer cab floor and rocker panels. I've been searching the Internet to try to find the best prices, and I plan on going to the Webster Auto Swap Winter Extravaganza in February to see about picking some of it up. Years ago Uncle Mike was able to pick up rocker panels there cheap, perhaps I can be so lucky!

In case I have not expressed my gratitude enough for these gifts, I want you to know that I sincerely do appreciate them. (Don't think that I don't like the other non-truck-related gifts, it's just not what this blog is about!)

Merry Christmas to all!

A Tale of Two Trucks- The Truck Story, Part II

Looking back, I’m not entirely sure what the reasoning was, but sometime that summer Dad decided to buy a different truck for me to use. This second one was a step side as well, but it was the short bed, and it had a ’76 250 CID (4.1L) straight six, and was white. And it had a jacked up fender that looks like it had been through an accident and very, very poorly repaired. It was horribly rippled and the fiberglass looked like, well, crap.

I have a receipt dated 8/21/97 showing where Dad had the engine from the white truck rebuilt using the top half of the engine from the parts truck. I’m pretty sure it was shortly thereafter that I started driving the white truck. So there I was, a teenager with a drivers license and a vehicle. I thought I was pretty cool. I would drive to school, to work, pick up my friends, and just generally cruise around town.

Sometime shortly after getting the truck’s engine rebuilt, we had to find someplace to put the parts truck, whose engine was now taken apart and set in the bed of the truck. Dad talked to his friend who owned a sheet metal shop in Lakeland, and arrangements were made to store the truck there for “a few months.” Here again, Dad did something for reasons I don’t know. I guess it would be simple enough to ask. He decided to tow the parts truck on the grueling journey of 12 or 13 miles with the white truck, rather than his F-250 (a 6,000+ pound beast with a 460 big block).

We fitted the parts truck with a tow bar. For those of you not familiar with one of these devices, it’s an A-shaped or triangle-shaped metal frame. The base of the triangle is attached to the bumper with chains, and the apex of the triangle hooks to the tow vehicle. In tow, the towed vehicle is left in neutral and the steering wheel left unlocked, and this allows it to turn with the towing vehicle. At the time, the brakes in the parts truck still worked, and my Dad decided it would be best if someone rode in the parts truck in case something went wrong. My uncle Mike was volunteered for the task, and given instructions to hit the brake if necessary, and not to touch the steering wheel.

So off we went north toward Lakeland. My Dad drove, I was riding shotgun, and Uncle Mike was in the parts truck. Now, in Uncle Mike’s defense, I think it would be extremely bizarre to be sitting in the driver’s seat of a moving vehicle for several miles and not touch the steering wheel. As we left town going north on Highway 98, hitting about 45mph, we had noticed that he had, in fact, put his hands on the wheel. This is not desirable as it causes resistance in the towed vehicle’s steering, which can cause the front wheels to drag a little instead of rolling in track in the direction that it is being towed. This can cause the front wheels of the towed to be yanked all the way to one side or the other, which can have the effect of dragging both vehicles in the direction that the wheels were yanked. In our case, this was to the right. We were in the right lane, and then we were in the right ditch. Dad tried for second gear (I think) and missed (I think), first gear (which wouldn’t ever work if the vehicle was moving), and finally found a gear and managed to drag us back up to the shoulder to a stop. Words ensued. We were all pretty shook up, and Uncle Mike’s wrist hurt a little from having the steering wheel ripped from it, but otherwise we were fine. The rest of the trip was taken at a much more leisurely pace.

That truck stayed there in that yard for the next 14 years. The white truck went on to many more adventures, which are . . . To be continued.

Blast From the Past- The Truck Story

Since Blogger conveniently puts the date at the beginning of each post, I decided to discontinue using the date as the title of my posts and start using something more descriptive.

It has come to my attention that not all of my readers know the whole story behind this truck. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to fill you in on some of the details.

The whole thing started back in May 1997, when I was 16 years old. I was on the very edge of getting my drivers license, so my Dad decided he wanted to get me a car. When he asked me what I wanted, I told him I either wanted a classic car or a pickup truck. A Chevy El Camino would have been a good compromise, but he didn’t find any before he came across this for sale in Lakeland:

A 1966 Chevy pickup! I remember him telling me that he had gotten it the day before he went and picked it up, but either he said or I heard the wrong year- I couldn’t fall asleep the night before thinking that tomorrow I would have a 1955. Not that I would have even known the difference at that point.

I was pretty excited about the whole thing, so I could hardly wait to get home the next day . . . and there it was. A 1966 (thought I was told it was a ’65) ½ ton Chevy pickup, with a long bed, step sides, a ’72 230 CID straight-six engine (that’s 3.8L for those you keeping track), single barrel carb, three speed manual with column shift, and a tool box. I didn’t have my license yet, nor any idea how to drive a stick, but I remember at one point driving it forward about three feet before hitting the edge of the driveway and stalling out. I think I may have pushed it back into position, I really don’t remember now. I remember my Dad and I (mostly Dad) tuning up the engine a bit, which ran great. The rest of the truck was a bit rusted. This is the truck that was doomed to become the parts truck, whose fate is described in my December 8, 2000 post.

To be continued . . .

December 19, 2011

Christmas came a bit early this year. Due to my in-laws various work schedules, we're doing the family Christmas this week. The main gift exchange will be tomorrow afternoon, but it was decided that some unwrapping of presents would occur tonight . . .

and my wonderful wife bought me a pair of "universal" floorpans! Maybe I'll unwrap a set of rocker panels tomorrow. Tonight I opened a few other useful items, a set of dremel attachments and a heat gun. More to follow tomorrow, if I receive anything else relevant to this blog.

December 8, 2011

I left this morning around 11 feeling as though I was heading off on some epic adventure. I had loaded up my truck with wrenches and pliers and all manner of things. The mission: Assess the parts truck; grab any easy-to-remove useful parts; and decide whether or not it was worth pulling out of there for more serious salvage operations like cutting out body panel sections to weld into the other truck or extraction extra parts to sell to other enthusiasts.

Here's what I found.

It didn't take long to decide that it was almost a complete loss. The body panels weren't in any sort of usable condition, the gas tank had been left uncapped and was almost certainly full of rust and water, and any parts worth pulling to try to sell as extras would need more than a little reconditioning to be of any use.  In short, there's no way it would be worth pulling out to store somewhere. There were a few pieces that looked like things that I could use, so I set to work.

The two parts I had hoped for the most from this truck were still there- the linkage arms that connect the shift knuckles on the steering column to the transmission. Mine had been lost previously after a real bodge job of a three-on-the-floor conversion we did back around summer '98 after the shift lever broke off the steering column. After a bit of study two or three years ago I decided I could go back to the original three-on-the-tree by reinstalling the linkage rods and getting a new shift lever. At the time we had assumed the parts truck was long gone, and there were no shifter-transmission linkages to be found in any parts catalog. Despite the fact that the engine had been removed from the parts truck and now lay in a rusting heap in the bed, the transmission was still under the floorboard, but conveniently detached from its mounts. It was a relatively simple matter to detach the linkage arms from the transmission, disconnect the speedometer cable from the transmission, and pull the whole lot of it out. Now I've got a spare transmission whose gears are hopefully in better shape than the ones I've got. No doubt they're both worn down, though.
I've also got the linkage rods, a spare speedometer cable, an extra window crank, a starter of unknown condition (but was just sitting there so I grabbed it), the rearview mirror which is shot except for the mirror glass looks better than anything else I've got, an extra linkage rod, and the taillight mounting brackets which I think can be used for reverse light brackets (if I haven't damaged them too badly pulling them off).

For the record, this was, in fact my first vehicle. I only ever drove it about three feet, but I can still remember how excited I was when I came home from school and there it was, or when we got the engine tuned up a bit and it ran smooth. It's a bit of a shame that it should have to come to this, but I know the parts I've taken from it, both then and now, are part of the bigger picture. The guys that own the place where it's stored are going to sell it off for scrap. Oh well, it did what we needed it to do. So long, old friend.

December 3, 2011

Two weeks ago something happened. Mike and I had seen some flyers at the local Chick-Fil-A for a "Car show / Cruise-in" or something to that effect, and we decided to check it out. The whole thing was pretty small as far as number of cars on display.  We found out that it was put together by some people from a social network called Mid Florida Cruisers. I decided to join up. Going to car shows and being connected to people that are into classic cars and restoration help keeps the energy in my own project. So what does that mean in terms of action?

First of all, I checked this blog and realized that it's been a year since I found out about the parts truck still extant. I notice that I had never posted any update on that front, so here goes. I went down and looked at it sometime, I don't recall when. There are still some parts worth taking, but I think I decided it wasn't worth hauling it out of there. Sadly now it's been so long that I've forgotten exactly what I wanted to do with it. I called up the people who own the place where it's stored and said I'd be down to start taking care of it the following week, which is the week that is now gone. ( Some stuff came up for work.) I plan to go down there next week and have another look, maybe pull some stuff off of it. More updates on that to follow.

Progress on the truck itself- very little. Radiator seemed to spring a leak and magically heal itself. I started cleaning all the junk out of the bed in preparation to get moving on the restoration again, much of which has been there since I moved here a year and a half ago. Beside the fenders and other various body panels that are back there, I found two boxes of water guns, chrome rings for the wheels, shelf brackets, a vacuum, various hoses, a slingshot, a pile of brass disks, that fender from the Porsche 944, styrofoam coolers, a bird feeder, and yes, a kitchen sink. It's still an ongoing process. I've started building racks and shelves for stuff that up to now has been sitting in or on the truck. That kitchen sink will make a useful utility sink behind the garage.

In other news, at the Cruise-in I met (or re-met) a local guy that's got a restored '65 truck. He told me he had seen some parts listed for a '64 on craigslist. I was able to make it up to Osteen today to check it out. The guy had a bunch of parts left over from a restoration he and a friend of his had done. We spent maybe an hour picking through it. I got a new "Deluxe" heater (an upgrade from the "Thrift Air" heater from the parts truck), a new windshield gasket with aluminum trim, a few other gaskets, new glovebox, aftermarket fuel gauge sender, door stops, dome light lens, door and window handles, aluminum headlight bezels, a license plate light, rearview mirror, turn signal switch, horn button, door windows, vent window assemblies, and a new grille support panel. All for $100! Now I gotta find a place for all of it...
 

 Aside from all of that, my Christmas wish list is full of body panels to replace the floorboard. We'll see what happens...